Thank You
by kindervelter
Summary: After selling out the "heroes" to Arthur, Zelena explores her chambers in the castle and attempts to order some Middle Ages room service. Of course, her new maid manages to screw everything up and Zelena gets a confusing and unwanted lesson in gratitude.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Notes:_

 _First off, I don't own Once Upon a Time or any of the characters therein. It's all just for funzies._

 _Second of all, this plot-bunny showed up in my mind after watching 5x07 and would not leave me alone, so here it is. I don't really do one-shots, but the jury's still out on whether I'll leave this here as is or keep exploring; guess it depends on how people react, so lemme know._

 _Either way, enjoy Zelena's sometimes ridiculous, always entertaining inner monologue as she has an unexpected run-in with a chamber maid who ruins her rug and puts her in an awkward situation._

 _As a side note, this is in first-person, Zelena's POV, just so we don't get confused._

* * *

It's taken some time, but this whole Wicked thing has ended up really working out for me; I've got a child of my very own on the way, a singular command of powerful magic, and, courtesy of King Arthur, a royal suite in a real live castle.

Now that I've got all that, I find what I really want is... some chicken.

With a flick of my wrist and a half a smile I feel my magic take hold around me - God, does it feel good to be fully myself again - and in a quarter second I'm no longer in my quarters, but in Arthur's "Grand Hall" (if one can call it that; mine in Oz was three times as magnificent!). He's standing there slack jawed, though that's possibly just his normal, everyday face, looking at me as though he'd never seen a magician before in his life.

"Arthur, dear," I say, pulling a chair out at his rather stupidly named "Round Table" and taking a seat. "Do send up a maid servant with some dinner for me, won't you?" I place a hand on my stomach. "The baby's so hungry."

Quite a treat this baby's turning out to be, honestly. Makes me wonder why I spent so long chasing after Snow White's when having one of my own is just so much more… lucrative.

"Of course, m'lady," Arthur obliges, though from the ever growing redness in his cheeks it's obvious to me he's not used to taking orders from anyone - much less a woman. But if I let gender politics weigh too heavily on me I'd never have made it big in Oz. Besides, what's poor, non-magical Arthur going to do defenseless, pregnant me?

Absolutely nothing, that's what.

Another snap of my fingers and I'm back in my room, surrounded by all my new things. I do so love to look around and know everything belongs to me. Good for the ego, if not the complexion - though I learned a spell for keeping the green off my skin shortly after coming to Storybrooke, the Land of a Thousand Idiots, the first time.

Speaking of looks, however, there are some necessary changes to be made if this chamber's going to become "home" for me and my bundle of joy. First off, we're going to need more mirrors. Lots of them. Luckily magic cures a multitude of ills, even interior decorating ones. Flick the wrist, think the thought, feel the magic, change the world. Delicious.

Just as I'm getting around to switching the walls from sporting Arthur's coat of arms to a far more appropriate shade of green there's a knock on the door. If it's not the dinner then I'm turning _whoever_ it is into a roast goose.

"Hello?" someone mouses, poking her head through the door.

"Yes, come in." It's really getting so hard to find good help these days. From across the room I swing my arm and fling the door open, revealing a petite woman dressed in greying tatters - though thank the stars she's had the sense to find clothing that looks to have been at least _formerly_ green - and carrying a silver platter.

"Shall I leave this on the table?" she asks sheepishly, her knees clacking together (It's a really annoying sound. Was she born with maracas for legs?).

"Yes dear, and do hurry. Saving your dreadful kingdom really does tire one out. And these days I'm scheming for two." One would think constantly finding ways to bring up one's pregnancy would get tiring after the first two months, but I'm finding it more and more exhilarating. The girl puts down the platter on one of my exquisitely decorated nighttables (I did the mouldings myself - flying monkeys; I love adding a home-y touch) and whips around to leave. Doing so, her sharp, almost aggressively angular hip bone smashes into the table and sends the glass of milk - my _child's_ glass of milk - flying onto the carpet.

"I'm so sorry, madam, I'll clean it up. Just let me get a rag..." She starts tearing part of her skirt off and moves to sop up the milk with it. Disgusting.

"Don't bother," I say, calling the milk out of the rug, _my_ rug, and back into the glass. She looks at me wide eyed, her knuckles clenched around the tattered piece of fabric. Little does the fool know I'm currently deciding whether or not to turn her into a toadstool or just a simple toad. Or maybe a fish, for the added comedic factor of -

"Thank you."

Wait, what?

"Wait, what?"

"Thank you, madam, for cleaning up the mess. I'll run down to the kitchen and fetch you another glass. Milk's good for the baby."

"Of course milk's good for the baby," I say, because what the hell else am I going to say to the idiot who thanked me for using magic to clean up her mess… who _thanked me._

"Yes, madam, I'm sure you know." Without a word she's gone, off to the kitchen presumably to get another glass. Somehow, she's still alive. Maybe the baby's making me go soft. Maybe…

I look to the tray of food, stacked delicately with chicken and apples and loaves of bread and any number of other delicacies. Then I look to the glass of milk, then to the carpet, then back to the door, and against my better judgement I think of that _damn_ maid, the maid that shouldn't still be alive.

The maid who _thanked_ me.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 _In which Zelena faces a crisis of self and her new maid tries to give her alcohol… kind of._

She's back again the next day.

It's around noon - or what passes for noon in Storybrooke, but here in the forever Renaissance Faire that is the Enchanted Forest they just call it midday - and she stumbles in carrying a basket full of bread and cheese in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. I'm standing on the opposite side of the room admiring my ever growing baby bump when she enters, an almost imperceptible shudder passing through her the moment she registers that my eyes are on her. No matter how thick my skin's gotten over the years, that shudder still _hurts._

"It's not polite to stare, dear," I say, perhaps more venemously than I mean to. Or, perhaps, _exactly_ as venemously as I mean to. She flinches, catching herself on shaky legs and navigating her way towards the table - towards the site of yesterday's disaster. She puts the basket and bottle down, her body shaking like one of those fancy massage chairs Sleepy was always going on about in the other land. Poor woman, so pathetic. It's hard _not_ to feel pity towards her.

Using my magic I pop the cork on the wine bottle, which only serves to startle her more. As it begins to pour itself into the glass I'm suddenly struck by a curious thing.

It's wine. And I'm pregnant.

"It's not actually wine," the maid says, almost as though she was anticipating my thoughts. Eery, though I suppose I've done eerier (in fairness, however, I always did it with far more style than this oafish girl seems capable of mustering). "I just needed something to carry it in and that bottle was the closest thing I could find."

"Well. Good. Can't risk hurting my baby, now can we?" I say, switching on what I've now come to call my "robo-matron" voice. It's three parts Snow White, one part Rumplestiltskin, and four parts myself. A perfect blend of sweetness tinged with the tiniest hint of sadism… not that this dum-dum has the ability to comprehend such nuance.

"Wouldn't want to do that," she responds, and though the words sound like the kind of cretinous thing Regina might say, the tone is oddly sincere. Off-putting. I don't like her. "Have you thought of what you're going to name it?"

 _What the hell?_

"Excuse me, dear, what did you just ask me?" Maybe the years of wearing pointed hats have done something to my hearing, because this tripe cannot be coming out of the mouth of my new maid.

"The baby, have you thought of what you'd like to name it?"

It's a curious question for two reasons, the first of which being that no maid in their right mind would be asking _me,_ the Wicked Witch of the West (for the record, _not_ a name I coined but one which I've come to embrace), about baby naming. It only figures that Arthur would send me the mentally damaged maid. Of course, there's reason two for this curiousness: no one has yet asked me this question, and as such I'm at a bit of a loss for words.

"I've spent long enough just trying to keep my sister from _stealing_ my baby that I've had little time to ponder anything as trivial as names," I say lamely, because the wicked truth (wicked being more and more my brand these days) is that the thought of naming this child hasn't ever crossed my mind… Oh my God, I'm having a child. I'm going to have a baby.

"Are you alright?" the maid asks. Catching a glimpse of myself in one of my multitudinous decorative mirrors, I can see I'm shaking slightly. Across the room the maid starts, then thinks better of it, then swallows deeply and crosses the room to meet me. She hands me the magically poured drink and moves me towards the bed, anchoring my hand on one of the curtain rods for support.

 _What the hell?_

"Enough." This is ridiculous, and I'm done. I'm _Zelena._ I'm _Wicked._ And here comes this maid asking about baby names and if I'm "alright" like she _cares_ when both her and I know she is a common kitchen maid and will _never_ be anything more. But me? And my child? We are destined for far greater things than even Arthur himself can aspire to. And as for this maid? I'll take her heart out and crush it here and now; after all, fear is the one thing I've always known to work in my favor.

And yet somehow, as I look over her sharp, angular frame, her severe brown eyes and her dirty, matted hair pulled back tightly against her head, I find I can't. The magic is there, pulling at my fingers to reach into her chest and pull out her still beating life force, but there's something else there too… something familiar, something curious; something uncomfortable. I want it to go away. I want _her_ to go away.

"Get out."

And she does. Without another word the maid hands me the glass of whatever-it-is and stands, wiping her hands on her dirtied, tattered dress and heading for the door. I can hear her step beyond the threshold, but suddenly she's back, poking her head through the entryway.

"My name is Sara. If you need something, you'll know how to call me now." And with that she's really gone, and I'm here alone but not quite alone, because I'm having a baby and somehow that's new, and somehow that's scary, and somehow none of this is becoming what I expected it to be, and her name is Sara.


End file.
